


For I Have Loved Strangers, and After Them I Will Go

by Emiline



Category: The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, Fix-It, Yuletide, Yuletide 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:39:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emiline/pseuds/Emiline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The new peace of mind that Newland had felt that evening he sat outside of Ellen Olenska’s building did not last as he had hoped and expected it would. </i>
  <br/>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	For I Have Loved Strangers, and After Them I Will Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firstaudrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/gifts).



_“After a little while he did not regret Dallas’s indiscretion. It was seemed to take an iron band from his heart to know that after all, someone had guessed and pitied…And that it should have been his wife moved him indescribably. Dallas, for all his affectionate insights, would not have understood that. ”_ Edith Wharton, _The Age of Innocence_

  
“I wish you had come, Dad,” Dallas said when he breakfasted with Newland the next day. Newland met this with silence, and continued to methodically chew his sausage. How could he explain to his son how Society had worn down his youthful ideals, how it had pressed him slowly, inexorably into that mould to which it fit all men of his generation? The world Dallas had grown up in—had grown into—there was nothing comparable in that experience.

“It was lovely meeting her. She’s every bit as interesting as Fanny’s described her. Dashed funny thing, but she didn’t seem surprised that you wouldn’t come. Sad, perhaps, but not surprised. “

Newland felt a curious warmth spread through to his extremities. He picked up a piece of toast and spread marmalade on it. Dallas seemed to be waiting for him to say something. With a frustrated sigh the young man reached across and laid a hand gently on Newland’s arm.

“I want you to be happy, Dad.”

“I am happy.” It was the truth, or some of it. It was _a_ truth. 

**XXXX**

The new peace of mind that Newland had felt that evening he sat outside of Ellen Olenska’s building did not last as he had hoped and expected it would. The hours that he had spent wandering what he considered now her corner of Paris had not filled in the static picture he held of her, the one that was like an image of a beloved character in a novel. Rather, he found that spending the time in Paris had given new fodder to his imagination, and when he returned to New York, he found himself imaging her life there with greater clarity than he had before. She became once again living character in his mind, and he visited that corner of his mind with increasing frequency, as he had all those years ago when she had so shocked New York.

When he and Dallas had sailed back, Newland had had no intention of returning to Paris ever again. But as weeks and months passed, the feeling that he must see Ellen again increased with urgency, till one day, three months after Dallas and Fanny’s wedding, Newland found himself on a steamer to Paris.

He was in that city a week before he took definitive action towards meeting Countess Olenska. He had not written or wired her about her plans, and Dallas was still on an extended honeymoon trip with his new wife. 

On his fourth day in the city, he found himself in a florist’s shop, fingering a beautiful golden rose. He left the shop quickly, and spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly. On the fifth day, he returned to the shop, bought the rose, and wrote on a card with the address of the hotel:

_May I come see you at 3 o’clock tomorrow?_

He slipped it into a cream-colored envelope onto which he wrote her name, paid for it, and hurried back to his hotel, where he attempted to read a new volume he had just purchased. 

After dinner, the porter handed him a note, and his heart gave an unpleasant lurch. He took the missive as calmly as he could, and retired to his room. He noted that his hands trembled slightly as he slit open the envelope. The scrap of paper inside read:

_Nothing would make me happier.  
-Ellen_

**XXXX**

The lift in Madame Olenska’s building made him nervous, but with the fast staccato beating in his chest he did not trust himself to the stairs. The lift attendant opened the door, and he stepped out into the hallway. Its length stretched out before him, and after coming so far his feet seemed strangely reluctant to carry him farther.

He was vaguely aware of moving down the corridor, and speaking with the maid, but the exact words flew from his memory as the door to the parlor was opened and there she was. He had imagined her, before, reclining on the sofa but she was standing to greet him.

He had been unable to settle definitively on words of greeting, and as they stood there gazing at one another he found himself temporarily robbed of speech. Suddenly to be in the room with her unbearable for though they were but few feet apart he felt the full distance of the years between them. 

She was changed, of that there was no doubt. In the long moments they stood there, in silence, he realized that it was not merely the years that had affected the change. All the time she had spent here, and perhaps the death of her husband, in all of this she had done for herself what he had never been able to help her to do: find her freedom. Ellen Olenska was free, and she was happy.

And so was he.

“Newland,” she murmured, and they embraced one another.

“I—It has been so long, I—“ the words he sought would not come. He drew back, took her hand in his, and kissed it reverently.

“I know,” she said simply. “We have been out of each other’s lives a long time.”

“You had become like a picture to me,” he confessed. “And now I see you here before me—Oh _Ellen_.”

The maid slipped unobtrusively into the room with the tea.

He marveled at Ellen’s composure. She was perhaps, a little nervous, but on the whole she looked steadier than he felt.

“Your son is a charming young man,” Ellen said, when their cups were filled. “It was a pleasure to meet him.”

He felt vaguely annoyed at her for bringing Dallas into this moment, but his happiness in seeing her exceeded any other emotion.

“He rather sprung your invitation on me. I hope you forgive me for staying away then. I couldn’t…he didn’t tell me until the day was practically upon me and I just—so much time had passed between us.”

“A lifetime,” she nodded, echoing his earlier thoughts. “At least.”

“I have missed you,” she continued boldly.

“You too?” Newland’s heart swelled, and he felt the old feeling returned, that he would go with her wherever she wanted to go. “I thought that I had…become less important.”

“Never,” she smiled, and she laid her hand upon his, and it thrilled him.

Their lips met and he marveled at the thought that there was no reason they should ever again have to stop.

“We are free,” he whispered. “There is no one left to be hurt by this.”

“There are still some left who would judge us, and your children by extension,” she responded softly.

“It doesn’t matter so much in this new world,” he said. “It won’t matter to my children. They’ve already guessed it. As for those who would judge us—I don’t care a whit for what they think,” he ended savagely. 

“Good,” she laughed. “Neither do I.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Jeremiah, Chapter 2 verse 25, a scripture referenced in _The Age of Innocence_.


End file.
